1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a powder coating apparatus, and more particularly, to a powder coating apparatus in which an object to be coated is coated through blowing of a powder coating material onto the object to be coated as the object to be coated passes through the interior of a paint booth.
2. Description of the Related Art
For instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-148805 discloses a conventional powder coating apparatus. In such a conventional powder coating apparatus, an electrostatic paint gun or the like provided inside a paint booth blows a powder coating material onto a suspended object to be coated, as the latter passes through the interior of the paint booth, to coat thereby the object to be coated. Not all the powder coating material blown onto the object to be coated in the paint booth becomes adhered to the object to be coated, and hence air in the paint booth is discharged, to discharge thereby, out of the paint booth, the powder coating material that fails to be applied and floats in the paint booth.
However, not all the powder coating material that does not adhere to the object to be coated can be discharged out of the paint booth through discharge of air from inside the paint booth, and some of the powder coating material becomes adhered to the walls or the like of the paint booth. Upon changes of color, therefore, the interior of the paint booth must be cleaned to prevent mixing with the color used before the change. Ordinarily, the coating operation is discontinued temporarily, and an operator cleans the interior of the paint booth using an air blower or the like. Color change takes therefore time. In order to shorten the color change time, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-239587 discloses a powder coating apparatus in which a side wall blowing section that jets air towards a side wall is provided so as to move from the top downwards with respect to the side wall, to enable thereby cleaning of the powder coating material adhered to the side wall, once coating is over.
However, the powder coating apparatus of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-239587 was problematic on account of the high cost and complex configuration required for enabling the up-and-down motion of the side wall blowing section that cleans the powder coating material adhered to the side wall.